Deepwater Horizon disasterThe spring 2010 BP oil disaster could have been prevented: expert

The BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico during the spring of 2010 could have been prevented if the experiences of earlier disasters had been put to use, Linköping University researcher Charles Woolfson claims. The U.S. government is now accusing BP of gross negligence and deliberate misconduct, and taking the company to court.

On 20 April 2010, the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil platform exploded into the ocean; south of the southern coast of the United States. The explosion caused the deaths of eleven people and an environmental catastrophe. Using advanced technology, Deepwater Horizon drilled for oil at the record depth of more than 4,000 meters below the ocean’s surface. In a wrap-up maneuver, a newly drilled source was to be secured by being capped with cement so that it could be opened and extracted at a later date.

Something went wrong, however. The seal broke causing oil and gas to flood out under high pressure and into the ocean. Following several explosions, the rig was evacuated. Eleven of the 126 on board did not survive. The gas and oil spewed forth uncontrollably for several months. In total, almost five million barrels of oil escaped, causing enormous environmental damage.

A Linköping University release reports that Charles Woolfson, former professor of Labor Sociology in Glasgow and currently professor of Labor Studies at REMESO at Linköping University (LiU), conducted a large study during the 1990s of the world’s biggest oil disaster, the Piper Alpha: 167 people lost their lives when this production platform sank into the North Sea in 1988.

As part of a new study, he compares the two disasters and the inadequate safety culture that caused them. He finds, he writes, several depressing similarities. Woolfson claims that if the right lessons had been learned from Piper Alpha, the accident at Deepwater Horizon would never have happened. The recommendation issued at that time should have become a turning point. More than two decades later, however, the safety requirements for U.S. deep-sea drilling are largely the same as before the North Sea accident in 1988.

Woolfson points out a fundamental contradiction between safety and profitable production. Both disasters illustrate examples of cost-cutting decisions that worsened safety. In the Deepwater Horizon case, a final independent test of the fateful cement seal was cancelled. The test would have cost $128,000.

Woolfson has received unexpected support from the U.S. government, which recently submitted an application for a summons indictment